Electrical substations frequently face challenges from several sources. These include vandals, intruders, hazardous weather, and high energy demand periods. On top of this, there’s the difficulty of the substations being unmanned and often remotely located. This makes them harder to protect from intrusion, theft, and sabotage. Substations are vulnerable points in the electricity grid and, therefore, critical to society. This makes it even more important to be able to remain in control.
Monitoring continues to be manual, but many energy organizations have been looking at ways to make this safer, more efficient, and actionable. Thermal imaging can support you in these efforts and provide continuous, accurate monitoring of substations to improve security and safety and help operational efficiency and continuity.
Thermal imaging improves operational efficiency
Hand-held thermography cameras are used in substations to detect heat and provide a thermography readout of the emitted energy. These checks are carried out at three-to-six-month intervals. While hand-held measuring requires physical visits to the site, a thermometric camera permanently mounted on the site introduces the possibility of having an alternative ahead of in-person checks by monitoring the relevant equipment day and night and all year round.
Thermometric cameras can both create alarms of rising temperatures and routinely conduct checks of critical areas, providing you with a greater understanding of the situation. The 24/7 monitoring of a site using thermal imaging helps you to catch a developing problem before it gets worse and more costly. This early intervention can, therefore, positively impact ROI.
Thermometric cameras are set to become essential equipment for trend analysis, operational efficiency, and continuous monitoring to maintain your substations and extract valuable operational data.
Detection of various threats
Due to substations’ critical role, they are subject to various threats, including cyber-related attacks. Cameras with built-in cybersecurity features help prevent hackers from infiltrating your networks and disrupting processes. However, other threats take on a more physical form of intrusion, such as theft and sabotage.
Compared to visual cameras, using thermal cameras to detect potential intruders provides you with more reliable detection and shape recognition. By combining high image contrast with motion detection, the false alarm rate can be kept down, with fewer unnecessary responses and actions by your personnel.
Thermal cameras can help you detect activity on and just outside the perimeter, day or night. The support in perimeter protection can play an essential role in your fence line solution. This solution could consist of a thermal camera with an analytic detecting a potential intruder, which triggers a PTZ camera to have a look and give a good visual of the intruder and track the intruder around. Audio deterrents like horn speakers or light deterrents like strobe sirens can also add to this solution to tackle intrusion threats.
Devices can alert you of a potential attack on the site, enabling your security company to check the scene. For example, if a transformer has been attacked, the alert provides an early opportunity to stop oil spillage and the machine’s collapse.
Another threat on the rise is drones. Malicious individuals increasingly use drones to monitor substations, deliver payloads, and cause your substations to fail. Drone detection is done with partner hardware and software. As with a visual camera, a thermal camera can complement this by providing a drone view.
Substation security for safety
A greater focus on maintaining substations also means more monitoring of the site. Overheating increases fire and explosion risk; thermal imaging and thermometric cameras can monitor equipment. The safety of your personnel inspecting machinery before sending engineers on site.
Thermal imaging also supports safety by detecting trespassers and triggering other devices in the security solution to deter any unwanted activity with audio and lights. Beyond security for the site and valuable assets, deterrence also protects the intruders. This is not limited to intruders with malicious intent (i.e., theft or sabotage) but also trespassers such as kids or teenagers who enter your substation out of curiosity or simply not knowing any better. These trespassers otherwise risk being killed or seriously injured among the high-voltage equipment.
Building resiliency on-site
Failure of multiple substations in one area would create a multitude of societal and business operational problems down the line. It is, therefore, critical to build extra layers of security into your substation sites to improve resilience to potential threats and issues. This is where thermal imaging can add the most value.
Thermal imaging is critical to improving your substations’ maintenance, security, and safety by monitoring areas in and around the premises 24/7. Your ultimate goal is to deter potential intruders and spot equipment anomalies at the earliest stage to avoid unexpected shutdowns or cascading events. Thermal cameras can act as first responders to achieving this.
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